Swordfishtrombones is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in 1983 on Island Records. It was the first album that Waits self-produced. Stylistically different from his previous albums, Swordfishtrombones moves away from conventional piano-based songwriting towards unusual instrumentation and a somewhat more abstract and experimental rock approach. The album peaked at No. 164 on the Billboard Pop Albums and 200 albums charts.
Swordfishtrombones
Thomas Alan Waits is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He began in the folk scene during the 1970s, but his music since the 1980s has reflected the influence of such diverse genres as rock, country, Delta blues, opera, vaudeville, cabaret, funk, hip hop and experimental techniques verging on industrial music. Per The Wall Street Journal, Waits “has composed a body of work that’s at least comparable to any songwriter’s in pop today. A keen, sensitive and sympathetic chronicler of the adrift and downtrodden, Mr. Waits creates three-dimensional characters who, even in their confusion and despair, are capable of insight and startling points of view. Their stories are accompanied by music that’s unlike any other in pop history.”
Waits c. 1974–75
Waits as a high-school senior at Hilltop High School in 1967. He dropped out at the age of 18.
Waits in an early publicity photo for Asylum Records, 1973
The Troubadour in West Hollywood, where Waits's performances brought him to the attention of Herb Cohen and David Geffen